Exciting and Dramatic Pine Bonsai Transformation

Well today I'm doing a one-to-one Workshop for a client and this tree Which is a Japanese five needle Pine or The Japanese white pine Is very interesting and hence I wanted To show it As a YouTube Now what I have here this tree is Interesting from several points First of all it's been grown in Moss and The owner told me that a few years ago He was given this tree I think 35 years Ago 34 34 years going I actually Remember the time And I believe it originated from us Long ago because I've been here 37 years So that would be right we first started Importing in 2000 not 2019 80 687 we started importing and we used to Import these by the 100 you know 100 200 500 at a time and The original pot if I can have a look at It was the blue port and this blue part Is the typical type of Japanese spot these Pines came in so With a pot this size the tree could be Only about this high no more than say 35 30 centimeter High look at it now it's At least 60 centimeter so in 34 years It's grown that big Oh But although it's in very good shape the Owner told me that a few years ago This tree started going downhill

So he did the pizza chain Maastricht so If you call them close you can see the Sphagnum Moss which has been used and Growing in a tray look at the mycelium In the Moss beautiful stuff and it's Growing so healthily so it's picked up Using the Peter Chan mustard I also want to show you a couple of Other interesting features which Our customer has done if you come close He's used cable ties to pull the Branches down so rather than use Wire tires or guy wires these use cable Ties to tie down like a chain so this is Very ingenious and this is something you Might even like to try but what I need To do is to give more definition to the Branches some of the branches are Springing up so we'll wire them down and Make the pads more Obvious and visible and give it a Generally good tidy up More definition of all the pants so that Is what we are going to do not only that To just show you how King My friend Dave is he has one of the Original copies of one of the Master Class And these books Three years ago during lockdown were Being sold for two to three hundred Pounds sterling but we have the new Version yeah it's Jessica one so you're One of the lucky ones who has the

Original book Bonsai master class so we Said about doing this so what I will do Your cable ties have done the work so we Will take them off and then we will set About wiring this all right I'll just say something about how these Pines are grown Most of the Japanese White Pines from Japan are grown on a black pine Rootstock so the graft is somewhere here You can see the difference in the box so This is Pine on Black Pine stock And now that these little Twigs have Died we can take these off we don't need Them they're not big enough to make gin Features so we take these off There's very little diebacks Surprisingly So it just shows that the tree generally Is in good health so the S shape we Can't change but we can change the pads So the pads are going to be Flattened more rather than letting them Spring up we're going to flatten them Much more So let's take a before picture and then After picture you'll see the Transformation [Music] Yeah so I'm going to wire these down But because they're fairly thick Branches I'm using four and a half mil Wire that may not even be enough a

Double call might not even be enough so I'm going to do it aided by splitting The branch so broad splitting literally Means Taking it through the branch like that It won't kill the tree I can assure you In fact it may even give it more Character because when the Scar heals it'll make the whole Branch Look nulled So it will really add character to the Tree So that would help a little bit Foreign Thank you Okay that should be enough We've got so far we've put a double coil Of four millimeter wire to Give These pads more definition But while I was looking at this tree The original tree was only this high but This tree has just grown over the last 34 years or 36 years and it's become Very leggy I'm not entirely happy with It you know if I wanted to make a little Idea what cut everything out and just Keep the top and making it right the Movement here is very nice and if you Come closer look at this feature here That like a little Shari desk very Interesting so there's a lot of movement Here so this is interesting What I was thinking and I was thinking

Aloud and on my uh students here with me I suggested to him Let us do something radical and before I Could say anything he said I had thought Of cutting the top off now how great is That it shows up great minds think alike And he From watching my YouTube videos I'd even Done the picture charm back trick And with the bad trick he had explored The possibility himself of removing the Entire top Let me show it to you So this is what he was thinking removing The top and making it a shorter tree Like a semi-cascade like so So you can imagine the top disappear and We can tilt it like this and then bring This thing back so we get a more compact Tree without this leggy bit So we were We have time permission As we say Bite the bullet And work towards that I may keep it as a gin for a while to See what the Gin looks like But once we decide that's not going back So we only live once yeah that's right We only live once so let's go for it Okay I don't know when he wants the pleasure Of cutting it or not you ought to have The pleasure of cutting them yeah I did

Good okay All that 34 years of growth There you go there's no going back We've reduced the height of the tree I can see your heart jumping calculating And they're going to make this a dense Tree and it's going to be like that I Think you won't regret it because if you Had thought of doing it but didn't have The courage to do it we will perceive to Do it so the next stage is going to Create a head and then we will see where It goes from there all right I'll just show you where we've got to we Keep wiring yes we're just wiring the Pads So the pads are flat So we've wired the pad flat now before I Do anything with this I'll just take the Bark off because I'm going to use it for An anchor to put some guy water So we use all sorts of devices to get The bark off You see this is a special type of Japanese gin plus called the duckbill You see it just rips the bark off [Music] You can use all sorts of tools pliers Or whatever [Music] So I guess we even prefer to use this Humble Box cutter When the bark is alive it comes off very

Easily We will keep it up to there we won't go Further than that [Music] The ultimate length of this gin We will decide at a later stage We're not going to rush it because let The design evolve D [Music] Foreign Carving tools to refine it [Music] [Music] Foreign To the Driftwood here Performing on the detail you can see the Wiring Foreign Foreign I want to bring the head closer in No amount of tick was going to Do it effectively so I'm just doing A guy wire like this And hopefully this will have brought it In much tighter You can wire some more of these down Like that So this is the angle of planting of the Tree so if you come from here you can See the frontal view Uh and then the Gin is probably if you Feel they're a bit too long I think it I

Feel it's a bit longer in fact this Movement is quite nice going that way So I will probably keep it like that let Me just shorten this Driftwood a little bit Also the top Gins could also be Shortened a bit Foreign [Music] Shot that a little more And then you can refine it with all Sorts of carving tools So this movement and that movement Is all right so we're going to plant it At this angle eventually So it should be quite nice So one final shot of the tree We can decide on how long to keep the Gin I mean how long the Gin should be it May not need to be that tall but it's Quite a nice feature don't you think yes Yes yeah Yeah it gives character And we have a nice semi Cascade and come To Spring in February Dave will bring it back to the nursery And I'll help to put it in a semi Cascade pot and there we have a formal Operator no informal operator tree Turned into a semi-cascade One of the side branches has become the Head and the other side branches become The cascading part so I hope you are Happy with it and thank you for letting

Me video this because this has been a Very exciting project so the Gins have To be refined so that's another One-to-one class for my client here so We've had a lovely time [Music] Thank you